


The Ones Left Alive

by lionessvalenti



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Survival, referenced animal death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 08:37:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15926798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/pseuds/lionessvalenti
Summary: Jean and Nina make a home when the world outside is undead.





	The Ones Left Alive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/gifts).



"Have you ever looked inside their minds?" Nina asked one evening. She was sitting on the porch swing, the wolf curled up at her bare feet, as she fashioned herself an arrow for her bow. A gun was more practical for killing the undead, but she preferred this weapon. Jean had been the one to teach her how to use it, and Nina always said it empowered her.

Jean knew why she preferred it, but she never made Nina tell her. It was too personal, and Jean honestly shouldn't have known in the first place. Sometimes, these things slipped through.

"What?" Jean asked, as though she hadn't heard the question. But she could hear Nina fine, and feel her every emotion as it coursed through her. Anxiety, the one they all held as the sun went down, a deep sadness for all her losses, and the quiet purr of attraction that buzzed under her skin every time she looked at Jean.

Nina smiled faintly, knowing, and Jean felt the warmth of Nina's feelings for her, like a security blanket. Nina was only this side of seventeen, but society had collapsed. Jean, at twenty-five, could hardly feel guilty for the pair of them finding comfort where they could when almost everyone they knew was dead.

"The undead," Nina clarified, a bit louder this time. "Have you ever read their thoughts?"

"Only once on purpose," Jean replied, her skin breaking out in gooseflesh at the memory of it. "Once was enough."

"What was it like in there?"

Jean shook her head. "I'm not going to talk about it."

"That bad?"

"That empty."

* * *

They called it the homestead. It was a small cottage in an open field. It was once hooked up with electricity and running water like most homes, but those things didn't really exist anymore. Now, they got clean water from spring a mile into the woods and boiled it over an open flame before they drank it. But the house gave them shelter from the rain, warmth in the winter, and solid stone walls separating them from the undead when they came out of the forest.

The house had a porch, with a swing, and it reminded Jean of her family. Before. Before the undead. Before she came into her powers. When her parents weren't afraid of her. Maybe they'd had a swing like that, or maybe she'd made it all up in a rose colored fog. It was hard to tell anymore. It was a hundred lifetimes ago.

Jean waited on the porch, watching for Nina, who had slipped into the woods once the sun was at noon height. The undead were slower in the heat, and the sun burned their skin. They usually went to ground in the daytime, but that didn't mean they were never seen.

She didn't _worry_ when Nina was gone. The wolf was bonded to Nina, and sensed the undead and warned them when they were coming. Nina had her bow. She was prepared.

But Jean still waited, watching the treeline for Nina's return.

Finally, she appeared, the wolf alongside her. She had two dead rabbits slung over her shoulder and tears on her face. Jean had offered to hunt once, but Nina told her not to waste her bullets on the animals. Not when she could soothe a rabbit or a deer into submission and quietly snap its neck.

It was practical and smart, two things they needed in this life, but it never got any easier.

"Take them," Nina said, shoving the carcasses into Jean's arms, before disappearing into the house. She just needed a little time, refusing to be around as Jean skinned and cleaned them.

Once the game was boiling over the hearth, Jean slipped into the bedroom where Nina lay on the bed, the blankets pulled up to her shoulder, despite the summer heat. The wolf lay at the foot of the bed. He raised his head to Jean, watching as she crawled onto the bed next to Nina.

"You want to talk about it?" Jean asked.

Nina rolled over onto her back. She looked up at Jean with wide eyes. "Why do we even bother? They're going to get us one way or another. What's the point in all this fighting?"

Jean brushed a lock of hair away from Nina's face. "What brought this on?"

"I'm tired," Nina replied, her eyes shutting for effect. "The game is getting harder to find. The undead keep eating them now that there aren't as many of us left. It's not going to be much longer until we can't hold them off anymore."

"But we have to keep trying," Jean said slowly.

"We didn't sign up for it to be this hard."

"I sometimes thought the same thing when--" Jean stopped herself from saying _when I was your age_. That made her sound terribly old. "When my powers first surfaced. I couldn't control it at all, and I felt and heard _everything_. You think you're prepared for what life throws at you, and then... mutant."

Nina smiled a little. "I guess I was lucky that way. Being a mutant was perfectly natural when I was little."

Jean nodded. "I know your memories of your father are hazy, and I never knew him personally, but what I know about him... I don't think he'd want you to go down without a fight. He certainly wouldn't have."

Nina slipped her hand into Jean's, their fingers lacing together. She knew they would never see eye-to-eye on the subject of Erik Lehnsherr but the world was long past the debate of humans and mutants. Most of the ones left alive were mutants, their abilities helping them survive, but now they were so spread out, there was no way of knowing how many were left.

Jean nestled down in the bed next to Nina and kissed her. The shift in Nina's mind was subtle, sliding from her despair to arousal, and the desire to forget about everything happening outside of the homestead. Jean smiled as she opened her mouth to Nina's kiss, happy to let her forget. She'd reach into Nina's mind and take away all the worry if she thought she could get away with it. If she thought it would actually help.

Jean hadn't even reached beneath the blanket when she popped open the button on Nina's jeans, finding the pants open when she slid her hand down the front of them. Nina arched into Jean's touch with a gasp.

"I've got you," Jean whispered, feeling Nina shudder next to her.

From the foot of the bed, the wolf growled, a low threatening noise, and Nina sat upright. "Undead."

Jean pulled away from her and rolled off the bed. The wolf was staring at the door, its hackles raised, and teeth bared. She extended her hand, pulling the shotgun from the corner and into her waiting palm. She didn't have to look behind her to know Nina was already drawing her bow.

The three of them walked out of the bedroom and into the main room of the house. The windows had been long boarded up, so they only had the wolf to guide them. Nina trusted her companion, and Jean trusted Nina.

"Twenty yards out," Nina said. The wolf's senses were sharp, but in the heat, it wouldn't be long before they could all smell the rotting flesh. She glanced over at Jean, her expression terrified, but her hands were steady around her weapon. "You think you can take them?"

Jean nodded. "Stay close."

The door swung open, and Jean could see two undead shambling toward the house. They must have smelled the cooking meat, or the blood on the inside of the rabbit pelts she'd left outside to dry. It didn't matter why. They were here, and it would only take one to destroy everything.

She took a breath and focused everything on the undead. They froze in place, but their minds still whirred. It was a cavernous void of a deep hunger. Nothing left of the person who once was a part of that body. It was empty and just looking to be fulfilled by _something_. Everything shifted in black and white. The hunger and pain.

Jean ignored it, no matter how loud it was. She had to concentrate. Raising her shotgun, she fired two shots. The heads exploded, one after the other in a shower of blood, but the bodies remained standing until she released them. Then, they fell to the ground in a pile. The whirring stopped, and the world came back into color.

Jean dropped her gun to the floor and a moment later, she fell down after it.

"Jean!" In a flash, Nina was by her side. She was scared, and of course she was. There wasn't even an attack. It had been nothing, and Jean was practically passing out. "Are you okay?"

Trembling, she nodded, reaching for Nina's hand. "I saw them. I saw inside--"

"You don't have to say anything," Nina said, stroking Jean's hair. "Go back to bed. I'll take care of the bodies."

Jean let out a shaky laugh. "Just give me a minute. You don't have to do that alone."

"I know." She stroked Jean's cheek. "But we have to take care of each other. We're all we have left."


End file.
